


Above the Ground Floor

by 94BottlesOfSnapple



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack, F/M, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Howard Stark is an idiot, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-11 22:43:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3335531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/94BottlesOfSnapple/pseuds/94BottlesOfSnapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edwin Jarvis has helped Howard Stark do a lot of admittedly less-than-savory things. Duping Captain America isn't even the worst of them, probably.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Above the Ground Floor

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, I blame my roommate. I'm not actually sure how we came up with this scenario except that we concocted it in the middle of a commercial break, but there you have it. God bless Agent Carter, it's a masterpiece. I swear, guys, I've been skipping Supernatural to watch this show live and I haven't regretted it. (Especially since Forever airs immediately afterwards--)

Steve Rogers liked to think of himself as a well-balanced, not particularly brash man. This, of course, was mindless self-indulgence, but people who save the country are allowed that every now and again. And anyway, it’s hard to think of oneself as brash while reading a battered copy of Wuthering Heights.

But, as was his nature, Howard Stark had a way of turning everything on its head.

It was just after 8:30pm when the phone in Steve Rogers’ government-issued thanks-for-stopping-Hydra house rang shrilly. Steve placed a bookmark between the pages of his novel and padded in socked feet to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Ah… Captain Rogers?” a nervous-sounding man greeted, words precise and neatly accented.

It took Steve a few seconds to place the voice. Edwin Jarvis. Howard’s… Well, butler of sorts, though he seemed to do most anything Stark was too lazy to. Thankfully, Jarvis appeared to be quite well paid for all his troubles.

“Yeah. What is it?” Steve asked at last, tearing himself away from unflattering internal monologues about Howard.

There was a long, uncomfortable pause. Several hours later, Steve Rogers would realize that discounting this silence was his first tactical blunder of the night. Jarvis coughed, cleared his throat, and spoke again.

“Yes, well. That is. Mr. Stark has asked me to inform you he is meeting with Miss Carter tonight.”

Steve’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“Is that supposed to be some sort of invitation?” he asked bluntly.

“I would rather not hazard a guess,” said Jarvis. “Merely that he asked me to tell you he has gone to visit her at the Griffith, and that. Ahem. You should ‘see what she’s got in her drawers’.”

The impression of Howard, for it could be nothing else, was at least overtly recognizable if not completely spot on. But Steve was a little too busy trying not to snap the phone receiver in his hand. He wasn’t sure if he even managed a strained thanks to the poor man before slamming the phone down, slipping on his shoes, and snatching up his jacket.

Because if there was one person to never trust in a woman’s room, it was Howard Stark.

And really if the woman was Peggy, well, all the more reason to rush in because the murder of Howard Stark would be high profile indeed and not even her sterling military record could stop her from being tried for first-degree murder.

 

Steve’s about two floors up, scaling the back side of the Griffith when he finally begins to wonder if what he’s doing is, in fact, a good idea. But his mind is taken up with the potential consequences if he gives in to his more rational side and leaves, so Steve continues to scale the building.

Peggy’s window is open, slightly, letting in a breeze. And if that’s not the most suspicious thing of all, Steve will eat his shield. He has hauled himself halfway inside before there’s a slight shriek of indignation, and Peggy is battering his head ineffectually with a pillow.

“Steve!” she hisses, doing her best to be silent. “What on earth are you doing here?!”

That is the moment he finally fumbles.

“I… Wh… But… Stark…?”

Peggy’s eyes narrow dangerously. In escaping her glare, Steve decides he should probably not be hanging half out of her window and rolls gracefully into her room. It’s quite nice, he decides. And she’s got his old army photo – pre-super-serum, she has an admittedly validating fascination with that time of his life he’s noticed – sitting at her vanity. A doofy smile spreads across Steve’s face until a particularly Spartan whap with the pillow lays him out flat.

“What fool scheme did Howard put you up to?” she demands darkly, pillow raised like an act of war.

Steve knows to surrender before she gets something that could actually hurt him out.

“I got a call from his butler – you know, Jarvis?” he insists hurriedly, to placate her. “And well, he said… I thought Stark had…”

There is a long silence. A soft breeze through the open window ruffles the curtains, though neither of them moves to close it. Peggy Carter lets out a loud sigh, drops the pillow, and presses her fingers to her temples.

“You thought Howard had snuck into my bedroom, and your first instinct was to _sneak in after him_?”

Steve’s cheeks color.

“Well, when you put it that way…”

Peggy throws up her hands.

“Men!”

She paces the room, three times in a very precise figure-eight formation. Steve continues to lie on the floor and watch her fondly. It is halfway through the fourth round that she stops and nods her head. Then, she points a manicured index finger firmly at Steve.

“You,” she orders. “Stay there. I’m going to go have a _talk_ with Howard.”

Steve Rogers does not envy Stark that talk.

Especially with the way Peggy’s shoes clack against the floor as she leaves, locking the door behind her. With some semblance of his sense recovered, Steve carefully closes and latches the window. He then briefly ponders the secondhand comment on Peggy’s ‘drawers’, studying her bureau, but Captain America is never duped twice. Especially in one night.

And just the thought of rifling through Peggy’s neatly-folded clothing has Steve’s ears stained a brilliant red.

Meanwhile, on the ground floor, Peggy Carter has co-opted the telephone to call Howard Stark’s personal number. He answers in a blithe, generic way that makes her want to lay him out flat with a briefcase to the jaw. Unfortunately, that type of action will have to wait until both Howard and a briefcase are in vicinity. In the meantime, verbal beatings are all she has.

“Peggy! I was wondering when you’d call! I wanted to warn you, Steve’s gotten it into his head to sneak into the Griffith. Thinks it’ll be some big romantic gesture, you know? I tried to talk him out of it, but—”

The angry hiss of air escaping through Peggy’s clenched teeth is enough to stop even him.

“Howard Stark, you _absolute_ —” she loses herself for a moment, and breaks off. “You…!”

“I, brilliant, multi-millionaire scientist?” he suggests.

“You meddling, overbearing, overconfident, over- _sexed_ , incompetent, selfish _halfwit_!”

It’s the ‘halfwit’ that gets him and they both know it, but it makes Peggy feel better to call him all the rest too. As he seems sufficiently cowed by her anger, she allows him to hang up. Then she turns to the stairs and spends the return to her room attempting to come up with a good way to get Steve out of her room and save both her dignity and her time at the Griffith.

Unfortunately, for once, a plan is not forthcoming.

Steve could, of course, always just climb back down the same way he got up. But that was already risky enough in the upwards attempt, when he could actually see his next handhold. And while she’s not particularly worried Steve will injure himself, he’s quite durable after all, he could certainly cause a distinct commotion.

And so, she steels herself upon opening the door to deliver her verdict.

Steve, totally unprepared, is almost knocked back to the floor with red-faced mortification as the lock clicks home and Peggy Carter says to him,

“Looks like you’re staying the night.”


End file.
